Pharmacy benefit manager touts government savings as antitrust concerns heat up

{mosads}Critics of the proposed merger between two of the nation’s largest pharmacy benefits managers say it would create a behemoth that would control more than half of specialty pharmaceutical sales for cancer and other complex diseases and close to 60 percent of the mail-order market. Proponents say patients and taxpayers stand to gain as pharmacy benefit managers promote medication adherence while forcing pharmacies and other drug distributors to become more efficient. 

Much of the criticism has come from retail pharmacies that fear the merger will cut into their profits by pushing mail-order drug sales and other cost-saving techniques. Express Scripts is visiting lawmakers with pharmacists in its network to persuade them that patients will still benefit from pharmacists’ attention.

“We really put our pharmacists to high use,” Miller said. “They’re not the ones counting pills — that’s all automated — they’re the ones actually getting the patients with cancer, other chronic diseases like diabetes, and working with those patients and their physicians to make sure they’re on the right medication, that they’re adhering to that medication, and that they’re not suffering untoward side effects.”

Express Scripts has taken the lead in lobbying for the merger.

In September, The Hill reported, the company hired a former top staffer to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) to help assuage the panel’s concerns.